However, this latest media wave may serve as the evolution of Rice’s re-branding campaign to distance her from her Bush-era political tenure. She is increasingly transforming herself from doing mostly policy work to being a trailblazing Renaissance Woman icon across various arenas: education, foreign affairs, sports, business, and the arts.

Despite the economic malaise, Rice’s popularity may also be precisely because she has never been an elected official. Rice may serve to confirm for many center-right voters’ minds that the Republican Party is increasingly a welcoming place for racial minorities and represents racial progress in the wider society. Younger Republicans especially yearn for an inspiring political figure capable of going toe-to-toe with President Obama.

While Rice’s life story makes her a very compelling “Great Black Hope” for the Republican Party, ideological realities within the GOP dictate that she will not be in a position to significantly help the party with black voters or independent female voters as is often claimed in media articles.